Culture Clues - Outliers, the Story of Success

Our consultant Tom Fadrhonc reviewed the book: Outliers, the Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

"Outlier" is a scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience. In this book Gladwell writes about people who are outliers—men and women who, for one reason or another, are accomplished and extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are as puzzling as a freezing day in August.

In the first part of the book he provides examples of extraordinary circumstances influencing success. In the second part he highlights the importance of culture and quotes the research of Geert Hofstede as critical in understanding global events. Gladwell himself quotes this discovery as the most surprising finding of his book. Malcolm Gladwell describes in an easy to read style critical factors leading to, or preventing success. They give us a different perspective and look beyond the traditional factors that we normally use to explain success. Most simply said, Gladwell describes factors that deal with context, entitlement, and timing.

read the complete book review.

The two sides of Diversity - Schools as a means for integration

Already in 1986, Prof Geert Hofstede wrote in the International Journal of International Relations (vol.10, pp. 301-320, 1986), about the archetypal role pair of teacher and student in any society. He explains that when teacher and student come from different cultures, complexities can arise. Teacher and student are an archetypal role pair in virtually any society. When teacher and student come from different cultures, complexities can arise. These can be due to different social positions of teachers and students in the two societies, to differences in the way children are expected to learn in these societies, or to differences in expected teacher/student interaction.

Geert Hofstede further explains that, if you try to bridge the cross-cultural learning gap, the focus should be primarily on the teachers, by learning them about their own culture: getting them intellectually and emotionally accustomed to the fact that in other societies, people learn in different ways. This means taking one step back from their own values and cherished beliefs, which is far from easy. In order to be an effective teacher they might have to adopt methods which in their home culture are considered to be outdated or unpopular. For example, (s)he has to invite a person to speak up in the class, or learn to use more academic language, or avoid to praise the students openly. Please read the full article written by our consultants Tom Fadrhonc and Lena Lauridsen

Meet Ali, an Iranian student at a Dutch school. Ali’s parents have been called in to a meeting with his teacher because Ali is not doing his homework and is quite noisy during classes. But his teacher and parents do not agree on the problem. His teacher expects him to take responsibility for his learning, to co-operate and show respect towards other students as well as teachers. Ali’s parents expect a school environment with strict discipline; teacher controlled learning situations and respect enforced by the teachers and school management.

CultureGPS

CultureGPS Professional is an intelligent and easy-to-use iPhone tool that enables you to analyse behavior differences in intercultural encounters and to predict to a certain degree, which interactions evolve when people from different nationalities meet and work together.

For further details and to download this great tool, please visit www.culturegps.com